Rapid rural appraisal of post-maturity issues in the central region of Malawi

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Coping with poverty in Malawi

A workshop was held on May 5th and 6th at the Holiday Inn, London (Victoria) on the subject of Poverty Coping Strategies in Malawi. It was organised and facilitated by a three man team from the Social Sciences Department of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, and followed-on from an earlier workshop held in Malawi in March. Both workshops were funded by the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID), and are part of a consultancy entitled "Malawi: Poverty Coping Strategies Study" which is currently being undertaken by the NRI. The purpose of the consultancy is to develop a better understanding of coping strategies employed by resource poor households in the face of widespread and chronic poverty. Such an understanding will help in the design of more effective and more appropriate short-term safety net interventions and longer-term poverty reduction strategies

Post-harvest constraints and opportunities in cereal and legume production systems in northern Ghana

A technical and socio-economic survey was carried out throughout the three northern regions of Ghana (Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions) in July/ August, 1996. The survey, using PRA methods, addressed issues concerning three, three-year long Crop Post Harvest Programme (CPHP) funded projects recently implemented by NRI in these regions (the projects commenced in April1996). The three projects being: "The use of plant materials for protecting farm stored grain against insect infestation" (A0493); "Mud silos for the storage of cereals" (A0494),and; "Improvement in the storage and marketing quality of grain legumes" (A0495)

Colostrum provision and care of calves among smallholder farmers in the Kaziranga region of Assam, India.

Smallholder cattle farming in Assamese villages is sub-optimal in terms of calf survivability, growth, age at first service, and milk yield. Proper understanding of the local situation is essential to formulate appropriate, locally driven, livestock keeper education to sustainably improve animal health, welfare and productivity. In-depth interviewing and direct observation were used to understand the farming strategies, husbandry practices and challenges to health and productivity in a cluster of typical villages in the Kaziranga region of Assam, India, where resource use is balanced between the needs of humans and livestock, with competition from wild species. Knowledge of the importance of colostrum consumption by calves is poor. Timely consumption of sufficient colostrum (locally called "phehu") by calves was clearly sub-optimal in the majority of households. The reasons behind this are nuanced, but the practice of collecting colostrum from newly calved cows to make confectionery for human consumption is an important contributory factor. Care of the umbilicus of the newborn is not routine practice in the locality. Local women are the key group assisting with young and sick animals, including cases of simple dystocia and retained foetal membranes. Cows are usually milked once daily, to attempt to balance the needs for milk of household with those of the calf, which can result in suboptimal nutrition for calves. There are clear opportunities to improve animal health and productivity through locally provided farmer education, particularly with reference to colostrum provision, and the engagement of women farmers in any such programme is key to success

Animal health perceptions and challenges among smallholder farmers around Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India: a study using participatory epidemiological techniques.

Improvements to smallholder farming are essential to improvements in rural prosperity. Small farmers in the Kaziranga region of Assam operate mixed farming enterprises in a resource limited environment, which is subject to seasonal flooding. Participatory techniques, were used to elucidate the animal health challenges experienced in this landscape in order to inform and guide future animal health education and interventions. The flooding is essential for agricultural activities, but is a source of major losses and disruption. Farmers experience significant losses to their crops due to raiding by wild species such as elephants; predation of livestock by wild carnivores is also of concern. Access to veterinary services and medicines is limited by both financial and geographic constraints. Interviewees discussed nutritional and management issues such as poor availability of fodder and grazing land, while meeting attendees preferred to concentrate discussions on animal health issues. Livestock keepers were adept and consistent at describing disease syndromes. The key challenges identified by farmers were: foot-and-mouth disease; Newcastle disease; haemorrhagic septicaemia; chronic fasciolosis; diarrhoea; bloating diseases; goat pox; and sarcoptic mange. Improvements in the efficiency of farming in this region is a prerequisite for the local achievement of United Nations Sustainable development goals. There exist clear opportunities to increase productivity and prosperity among farmers in this region through a combination of vaccination programmes and planned animal management schemes, driven by a programme of participatory farmer education

Delivery and Evaluation of Participatory Education for Animal Keepers Led by Veterinarians and Para-Veterinarians around the Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India.

<div><p>Aim</p><p>We aim to investigate local perceptions of animal health challenges; current animal health knowledge; and methods to provide effective, relevant education to animal keepers in the Kanha Tiger Reserve area.</p><p>Materials and methods</p><p>A farmer education programme was undertaken in the Kanha Tiger Reserve area. Local animal health priorities were investigated through participatory village meetings (n = 38), individual animal keeper questionnaires (n = 100) and a written survey of local paravets (n = 16). Educational interventions were: veterinary surgeon led education meeting (VE); paravet led education meeting (PVE); distribution of printed materials (PM). 230 village meetings were carried out across 181 villages, contacting 3791 animal keepers. 20 villages received printed materials. Information was gathered on perceptions of local animal health challenges and current remedies. Efficacy of knowledge transfer was assessed four to five months later using a purposeful sample of 38 villages.</p><p>Results</p><p>Group meetings identified ticks (35/38), foot and mouth disease (FMD) (31/38) and diarrhoea (30/38) as the greatest animal health challenges. Individual interviews identified haemorrhagic septicaemia (HS) (87/100), blackquarter (BQ) (66/100) and plastic ingestion (31/100). Paravets identified FMD (7/16), BQ (6/16) and HS (6/16), and also indicated that animal husbandry and socio-economic factors were important. Current treatments were primarily home remedies and herbalism, but also included contacting a paravet, use of pharmaceuticals and faith healing. Animal treatment knowledge prior to intervention was not significantly different between groups (P = 0.868). Following intervention animal health knowledge was assessed: PVE performed better than controls (P = 0.001) and PM (P = 0.003); VE performed better than controls (P = 0.009). There was no significant difference between VE and PVE (P = 0.666) nor PM and controls (P = 0.060).</p><p>Conclusions and recommendations</p><p>Open access participatory village meetings are an effective way to provide animal health education. In this region distribution of posters and leaflets did not appear to be an effective way to contact animal keepers. Meetings led by paravets can be as effective as those led by veterinarians and paravets can rapidly and sustainably contact large numbers of animal keepers. Investigation of the local animal health situation is essential to ensure education is relevant and accessible to intended recipients. Interventions must be carefully planned to maximise engagement of all sections of the community, particularly women.</p></div

Peripheral inflammation acutely impairs human spatial memory via actions on medial temporal lobe glucose metabolism

BACKGROUND Inflammation impairs cognitive performance and is implicated in the progression of neurodegenerative disorders. Rodent studies demonstrated key roles for inflammatory mediators in many processes critical to memory, including long-term potentiation, synaptic plasticity, and neurogenesis. They also demonstrated functional impairment of medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures by systemic inflammation. However, human data to support this position are limited. METHODS Sequential fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography together with experimentally induced inflammation was used to investigate effects of a systemic inflammatory challenge on human MTL function. Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography scanning was performed in 20 healthy participants before and after typhoid vaccination and saline control injection. After each scanning session, participants performed a virtual reality spatial memory task analogous to the Morris water maze and a mirror-tracing procedural memory control task. RESULTS Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography data demonstrated an acute reduction in human MTL glucose metabolism after inflammation. The inflammatory challenge also selectively compromised human spatial, but not procedural, memory; this effect that was independent of actions on motivation or psychomotor response. Effects of inflammation on parahippocampal and rhinal glucose metabolism directly mediated actions of inflammation on spatial memory. CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate acute sensitivity of human MTL to mild peripheral inflammation, giving rise to associated functional impairment in the form of reduced spatial memory performance. Our findings suggest a mechanism for the observed epidemiologic link between inflammation and risk of age-related cognitive decline and progression of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease

Macro-scale assessment and response to natural disasters

Increasing climate driven disasters affect countries causing severe damages and injuries. The assessment of vulnerability has been the object of several studies. Here we propose an indicator of vulnerability at a macro-scale level (i.e. by country) using a novel approach. This is founded on the value of committed aids from overseas donor-countries. The timeliness of the response of donors in terms of committed aids with respect to the effectively disbursed ones is considered in relation to the occurrence of natural disasters in each countries at different years starting from 1985. Moreover, the effectiveness of the response in recovery from such shocks is evaluated in relation to the main sources of livelihood, such as agriculture, forestry and fishery activities. Thus, changes in land cover are also considered in the analysis. In addition, the impact of climate change is taken out from the analysis in order to isolate human responsibilities in catastrophic events. This is done using